G. Ghiringhelli Motherhood Oil on Canvas Italy XX Century

Oil on canvas. The painting celebrates the memory of a deceased person: it represents a tombstone with the name of the dead and the dates, laying on the bare ground in a desert landscape, faded with a sunset in the background, but surrounded by a garland of lively flowers. A white lily stands out from all, stretched out upwards, but with a broken stem, forcing the corolla to turn towards the ground: it is the "memento mori", the symbol of the transience of life. The beautiful painting is presented in a gilded coeval frame.

The Showdown

Oil painting on canvas. French school of the 19th century. In the tasty scene, a satirical episode linked to the French revolution is presented: on a carriage that bears on the door the three lilies of France with the initials LR, referring to the royal dynasty (Louis roi?), some people seem to want to leave hastily, while an innkeeper holding the bill tries to get paid, however held back by a guard. At the top left, the sign of the tavern reads "L'agneau a moderé", or "The lamb has moderated", an ironic expression meaning that until then it was tolerated (the regime) thanks to the sacrifice of someone, but the moment of reckoning has now come. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period frame.

Oil on canvas. Lombard School. It belongs to an important milanese family. Portrait of a gentleman that is holding a chain with a coat of arms in his hand. The painting shows some color drops and comes with coeval gilded frame.

Oil on canvas. Tacito in the Annales tells the deail of Seneca's death wanted by Nero who was Seneca's pupil and who accused ihm of taking part in a conspiracy against him. This theme had been often painted because of the intense pathos that it tranmits: Seneca chose to suicide himself rather than being killed by an executioner and in the painting is represented on his deathbed with the doctor that is witnessing his death while he is dictating his last wishes and his wife Paolina is crying. The painting has several color drops that need to be restored. Displayed in a coeval gilded frame from 20th century.

Oil on canvas. It probably depicts a tragic anti-Semitic event. On the right, a wounded soldier in Russian uniform is witnessing the dramatic scene of a slaughtered family while the rabbi is preying for them. The broken window and the upside down drawers make clear that the killers broke into the house. On the left of the mirror, there is a Jewish writing that may suggest the location. The word may be translated as 'Ciro' and may be referring to the areas of Georgia and Azerbaijan near the Kura (river flowing from Turkey to the Caspian Sea, known as 'Ciro' in 1800s). The painting, restored and relined, is presented in a frame of the 1800s.

The Astrea Ship 1904

Gouache on paper. Signed and dated 1904 bottom right. On the left, the name of the ship. Antonio De Simone belongs to the category of the Marinist masters, a category that was born in the 16th century and was received with great fervour in the Countries with great seafaring traditions, from the Netherlands to England, from France to Spain, in Italy and almost everywhere in the rest of the European continent, using everything related to seafaring as a subject. The highest popularity of this art genre was achieved in the 19th century and continued until the 1940s, in the last period of sailing and the advent of steamships. In Italy, the artists from the Campania and Liguria schools of painting and sea produced many paintings, some of which are called "portraits of ships": the production of the Neapolitan brothers De Simone is a part of this group. They specialized in painting portraits of important and famous luxury ships, both sailboats and steamboats. The gouache is presented in a frame.

Composed of woodblocked sheets, sewn together and partly colored, with matching figures and texts. The group consists of 23 booklets, of which two in three copies and one in four copies; another couple has the same cover but different contents. The booklets can be considered as "manga" of the nineteenth century: the word "manga" still today can designate many different productions, such as single cartoons, scattered drawings, more elaborate illustrations, comic strips, comic books, as well as animated drawings. Therefore, starting from the assumption that there is no "manga form" but different ways of conceiving objects and graphic forms all denominated with this word, the term manga can be attested in literary and essayistic use in Japan as early as the eighteenth century to indicate, as mentioned above, drawings and sketches. But it is from the first half of the nineteenth century that Katsushika Hokusai's 15 volumes of illustrations, studies, graphic entertainment and detailed bichromatic prints became established, thanks to the progressive publication, starting from 1814. If, on the other hand, we want to give the word the more specific meaning of “stories drawn in sequence”, then the debut must be placed in the second half of the nineteenth century, similarly to what happened in Europe and the United States for comics. The booklets are in good condition.

Oil painting on canvas. Signed top left. Further signature, Rome location and date on the back. Riccardo Pellegrini, a Milanese painter, was a pupil of Domenico Morelli and was educated in the climate of romanticism. He was a landscape painter and genre painter, but he also created valuable still lifes, with bright colors and a precise and realistic drawing. In this composition, two pheasants are lying in the center surrounded by pomegranates and bunches of black grapes, while in the background on the right, thanks to the reflection of light, two bottles of wine are barely visible. The painting is presented in a carved wooden frame from the early 1900s.

Oil on canvas. Portrait of an austere gentleman, in a meditative pose, a man of letters or a scholar depicted in his study, with books scattered on the desk behind him. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a period frame.

Female portrait 1869

Oil painting on canvas. Signed and dated on the right. Little is known about this French artist, who was basically a portrait painter, as his known production all fall into this category of subject. The painting denotes expressive intensity and good pictorial ability. Restored and relined, it is presented in a period frame.

Oil on the table. Italian school of the second half of the 19th century. The painting, a garland of multicolored and variegated flowers, effectively takes up the pictorial ways of the seventeenth century. The wood has large openings and cuts at the joints of the boards. The painting is presented in a gilded frame from the early 1900s.

Vase, Roman excavations, 1860

Oil painting on canvas. Signed and dated lower left. Further signature, date and title on the back. On the frame there is a stamp from an important private collection. The work proposes a composition of an amphora and a painted ceramic plate, surrounded on the right by roses. Milanese painter and decorator, Luigi Scrosati initially attended the Brera Academy, which he soon abandoned to devote himself to numerous trips abroad, in particular to Paris. Already from the beginning of his activity, in the 1940s, he worked as a painter of still lifes strongly influenced by French examples, in particular from the Lyon school. Alongside the easel and watercolor production, dominated by the specialization of still life of flowers, Scrosati was very active as an interior decorator, often engaged in team work alongside architects and project managers, but always with considerable autonomy and a characteristic style , substantially eclectic and aimed at a reinterpretation of the styles of the past. The debut in this area, towards the end of 1842, consists of a cycle of frescoes in the residence of San Fiorano (LO) owned by Giorgio Guido Pallavicino Trivulzio, for which Scrosati decorated a Gothic room, a Rococo living room and a small entrance compartment. His frescoes can be found in numerous villas in and around Milan, works in which Scrosati refers to the styles of the past, re-proposing eighteenth-century suggestions, but also of the Baroque. The decorations in the Dante's Cabinet first and then in other rooms in the Palazzo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan (now home to the Museum of the same name) were instead of neo-medieval taste, made with the Bertini team of which Scorsati was part. The disease that struck Scrosati in the lower limbs in 1857, making him ill, probably prevented him from continuing his activity as a decorator, forcing him to fall back on floral easel painting, which led him to produce still lifes of flowers, but also portraits or fake bas-reliefs with garlands of flowers or even interiors and genre scenes, in which he was influenced by the German and Viennese production of the Biedermeier type and the French one of the Lyon school. In 1862 Scrosati was commissioned to direct a new Ornato course at the Brera Academy, with particular reference to flower painting and relations with industry, a course set up by the Braidense institution to expand the already flourishing school of ornamental painting. The work is presented in a style frame.